Side by Side
by xxshebeexx
Summary: They'd travelled together for years. They'd faced countless challeges together, suffered bone crushing losses together and celebrated victories together. He had driven her crazy, made her angry and made her happy. She'd been soaked through, electrocuted, catapulted through the air with him. And now sleeping next to him in his bed had her as nervous as she'd ever felt in her life.


My first fic in... gosh, it must be four or five years now! I'm rusty, but give me a chance to warm up! Bit of Ash and Misty love to get started :) Enjoy - please review to let me know what you thought!

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Misty had no idea why she was she was so nervous.

They'd reached Pallet Town a few hours before, rain drenched, tired and hungry. Not an unusual sight in the slightest for the trio. Ash's mother was unperturbed by the unanounced visit, ushering them straight into the kitchen for hot tea and sending them for a warm shower one by one after, nattering away all the while until they all felt that they'd heard every scrap of gossip Pallet Town's small population could muster.

Somehow Brock had managed to extricate himself from the kitchen first and was snoring away in the only guest room the house had when Ash and Misty finally made their excuses. It seemed perfectly logical at the time not to disturb Brock and that both would sleep in Ash's little room under the eaves.

That was, until Misty lay rigidly in Ash's single bed with his blue duvet pulled right up under her chin, her arms straight at her sides, one cold from being pressed up to the wall next to the bed. She wanted to turn sideways, to push her back against the wall, but that would be even worse - she'd be staring at him in the darkness then.

He lay next to her in the bed, as far away as he could in the narrow space but altogether too close for comfort. He'd turned out the light before getting into bed, so she wouldn't see his mother's embarrassing choice of pyjamas for him. She smiled to herself at that that, but the smile disappeared when he slid in next to her, awkwardly muttering an apology when his elbow clipped hers. She'd clamped her arms tightly to her sides at that and hadn't moved in the half hour since.

She couldn't tell if he was asleep. His breathing was slow and regular, but he kept fidgeting. He didn't always fidget in his sleep. Maybe it was the rain? It was still coming down heavily on the roof tiles above her head and gusts of wind drove it heavily towards the curtained window on the far side of the room. Then again, they'd slept in all sorts of places in the past and that never mattered before.

Sleeping next to him had never mattered before, either. They'd travelled together for years, been apart for years and were reunited again. They'd faced countless challeges together, suffered bone crushing losses together and celebrated happy victories together. He had driven her crazy, made her angry and made her happy. She'd been soaked through, electrocuted, catapulted through the air with him.

And now sleeping next to him in his bed had her as nervous as she'd ever felt in her life.

She was so aware of each of his slow breaths, of how close his arm lay to hers. Her body was cramped up from lying so still, from forcing herself not to turn and make herself more comfortable. She wanted to see him and she was glad of the darkness at the same time.

It was easy to picture her sisters, laughing at her, teasing her about him. She'd always shrugged it off - he was her best friend, what of it? She'd long lost count of how many assumptions were made about their relationship. As long as she was sure of what they had, then what did it matter what anyone else thought?

But now, all of a sudden, she wasn't so sure anymore. What was different today from yesterday? Yesterday, he had teased her over her disastrous attempt at cooking dinner and she had lobbed the tin of spaghetti hoops at him over the campfire. He'd made faces at her in the diner afterwards and Brock had to step in to stop her from launching herself at him. He'd cut his finger on barbed wire while fishing up a Pokéball he'd dropped over a fence and she'd put a plaster on it for him. They'd stayed up late around the fire when Brock had fallen asleep and discussed tactics.

Now she was lying wide awake with the clock ticking long past midnight in his too-small bed and wondering what on earth was wrong.

_This is ridiculous._

But still, she couldn't close her eyes, couldn't turn over and just stared into the dark.

Until she felt him turn onto his side, prop himself up on his elbow and heard his voice, loud in the stillness, "Can you just please go to sleep?"

"What?"

"You're just lying there. It's freaking me out."

"Sorry."

She let that hang in the air for a moment. Her face felt hot and she was sure he must feel her embarrassment. She tried shifting a little, turning towards the wall but that wasn't any better. She turned the other way and suddenly they were nose to nose. Despite the dimness, she knew it right away when his breath ghosted her cheek.

"Sorry," she mumbled again, moving to turn but suddenly his hand was her arm, stilling her.

"Don't," he whispered, "stay like that."

Her nerves were amplified a thousandfold and she was sure the pounding of her heart must be loud enough to wake Pikachu curled up on the far side of the room.

"Have you ever ... wondered ...?" His voice was uncertain now. A change from his norm. At least it wasn't just her.

"Wondered what?"

"What it feels like?"

"What what feels like?"

And then there, in the dark, in his bed, he leaned over, closed the last centimetres between them and kissed her. The kiss was light, clumsy and unpracticed, but it was breathy and warm and made her feel as though her tummy was full of Butterfrees, just like every girls' magazine she'd ever seen and scoffed at had described it.

When he pulled away, she didn't want him to and instinctively reached out to place her hand on his chest. Her fingers curled around the collar of his pyjamas and she grinned.

"Your mom made you wear grandad pyjamas, didn't she?"


End file.
